


Brake Lights

by PandaInTheStars



Series: Lucifer Oneshots [4]
Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Angst, Devil eyes, Emotional Hurt, F/M, Season/Series 04, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-09-30 09:27:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20444879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PandaInTheStars/pseuds/PandaInTheStars
Summary: Chloe and Lucifer have a conversation on a stakeout.Set sometime in the gap between 4x05 and 4x06.





	Brake Lights

“What if you showed me again?”

Lucifer blinked out of his reverie and turned.

Chloe looked back.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Your face. What if you showed it to me again?”

Lucifer startled backwards in his seat. “What, right now?”

“Yes, now!” Chloe said, a false enthusiasm making her eyes and voice bright. “Why not?”

“Why…? Detective!” Lucifer spluttered. He shoved further back in his seat and reached into his jacket pocket for… something. His flask, maybe. Or a cigarette. Then he stalled, remembering, perhaps, that he wasn’t allowed to light up in the Detective’s car.

“Listen, Lucifer. I’ve been thinking.”

“Not very hard, clearly.”

“I’ve been _thinking_,” she stressed. “Maybe this is just… something I can get used to. There is such a thing as exposure therapy.”

“And there’s also such a thing as lunacy! Detective, we’re in a confined space—”

“We’re in a car, Lucifer. A pretty big car actually _and_ I know you’re not going to attack me or whatever.”

“Detective, you’re making the mistake of thinking about this rationally. If there’s one thing my face _doesn’t _do, it’s _provoke a rational response_.”

Chloe sighed and returned her attention to the blue Prius they were supposed to be watching. She had been mulling it over ever since Eve had looked her in the eye and told her that Lucifer’s face didn’t scare her. At first it seemed impossible. When Chloe looked at Lucifer’s face she saw a door to a world she didn’t understand. A world filled with unknown horrors and dangers. A universe so much larger and more complicated than she had ever previously imagined. How could Eve not recoil in the face of that? Linda too, for that matter?

No. It was just her. Just Chloe. _She_ was the one who was too weak to handle it. And she hated it. She _hated_ this mantle of weakness that draped over her like a heavy cloak. Its weight seemed to grow every time she looked at Lucifer.

He was her partner. And he had more than proved himself over the past couple months to be the man she had always known. A good man. Or working on it, at least. Either way, she owed it to him to _try_. At the very least, she ought to _try_ to accept him for all that he was.

If he would let her, of course.

“Is there something else you could show me? Not the… full face, I mean. Something smaller, maybe?”

He tensed. He fiddled with the sleeves of his jacket.

“Lucifer?”

“I could… show you my eyes.”

His eyes? Chloe knew Lucifer’s eyes. They were deep and dark and beautiful like the rest of him. She couldn’t remember much about the eyes that stared back from his demonic doppelganger. They were red, she knew that at least. But her mind had been a bit too occupied by the world crashing down around her to remember the exact hue, for example.

Lucifer interpreted her silence as hesitation. “Just the eyes,” he said hurriedly. “Nothing else. Unless… Detective, are you sure you want to do this?”

Chloe Decker wasn’t weak. And she wouldn’t give herself time to back out. She pursed her lips and nodded.

“Alright,” he said quietly. He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath, as if steadying himself. Then he tilted his head and looked at her.

His eyes were flaming red.

His irises were completely consumed by a light that _shifted_ like a campfire in the wind. His sclera was darkened, almost black. There was no emotion in his eyes. Nothing human. His eyes were built to stare into the souls of damned humans, to draw out hidden desires, to punish the guilty. They were eyes not meant to be seen by mere mortals. Certainly not by tiny police officers who were _nothing_ in the face of such an entity.

Chloe pulled in a sharp gasp and launched backwards, succeeding only in plastering herself against the driver’s side door. Her arms flailed, luckily avoiding the car horn.

Lucifer reacted almost instantly. He slammed his eyes shut and turned away, hiding his face from her view. His hands balled into fists and clenched tightly against his knees.

Chloe breathed shallowly. Slowly, ever so slowly, she forced herself to relax. She twisted until she was seated properly again, keeping her eyes on Lucifer. He didn’t move.

“Lucifer,” she said, brittle.

He didn’t respond.

“_Lucifer_. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—"

“Not to worry, Detective,” he interrupted stiffly, still not looking at her. “It’s my own bloody fault. You’ve made it very clear which parts of me are and are not acceptable. Obviously my devilish alter ego is not. I should know better by now.”

A fist clenched tightly around Chloe’s heart. This was exactly the opposite of how she wanted this to go. “Lucifer, no—”

“I get it, Detective. It’s alright. You don’t need to explain.”

Chloe swallowed down the lump in her throat. “Maybe if… we tried again.”

“_No_, Detective,” Lucifer said definitively. He twisted around and looked at her. This time his eyes were dark brown. And sad. And then something terrible happened. He _smiled_. “It’s okay. Really. I understand.”

Regret burned through Chloe’s veins. What was she doing? What was she trying to accomplish here? Was hurting Lucifer even more than she already had really worth… proving a point? And what point was that exactly? That she could be like Eve and Linda? Or was it more selfish? Chloe had always prided herself on being open and accepting. Maybe there was an ugliness within her that she was just refusing to face?

Chloe groaned.

“Perhaps I should leave, Detective.”

Chloe shook her head. “No, no. It isn’t… it’s not—”

“What, it’s not me?” He chuckled and it actually sounded sincere. “I’m pretty sure it’s not you, Detective. Last I checked _you_ aren’t the Devil. Quite the opposite, really.”

Chloe squeezed her eyes shut and huffed in annoyance. At herself, not Lucifer. “Just stay in the car,” she said shortly. “Nothing’s changed. Nothing—I’m just being—never mind.”

Silence descended.

After a few minutes, Lucifer started fiddling with his cufflinks.

The sky was getting lighter. If this guy was a no-show by dawn, they’d have to give it up.

The sound of traffic in the distance was growing louder.

Chloe chewed her lip.

“Is it… real?”

“Hm?” said Lucifer.

Chloe closed her eyes. “Is this… _you_… the way you look right now. Is it real?”

She kept her eyes closed waiting for Lucifer’s response.

“You mean, are my devilishly good looks nothing more than a clever disguise?”

“I mean—”

“Am I, in fact, a monster hiding in plain sight, wearing a reverse Halloween mask?”

“I never said—”

“Yes and no.”

Chloe stayed silent, waiting for the follow up.

“This face and… the other one. The slightly more _unsightly_ one, shall we say. They’re both real.”

Chloe, ever the detective, finally opened her eyes. “How can they both be real?” she asked.

Lucifer smiled shyly. “Our appearance… I mean… An angel’s appearance is not… static. It’s tied to our emotions. To our self-perception. To be quite honest I don’t understand the whole thing myself. Sometimes my eyes are red. Sometimes they aren’t. Usually I can control it. Sometimes it’s involuntary. It’s… a right mess, all things considered. But it’s what I am. How I was made. And I’m still _me_, always, no matter how I look.”

_And that’s really all that matters_, Chloe thought. She couldn’t blame herself for not knowing, back then, that the man who wore two faces really was the same beneath it all. Now, though, it was her job to internalize that fact. The way so many—including the man sitting next to her—had before her.

“Show me again.”

“_Detective_.”

“Not now. It’s almost dawn. Both of us need to get some rest.”

Chloe felt Lucifer’s eyes on her, watching.

_I’m sorry_, she wanted to say. _I’m sorry I can’t be what you need. _“I do want you to show me again,” she said instead.

“Detective, if you think… If this is because… You don’t have to _punish _yourself just because—”

“It isn’t a punishment.”

Lucifer’s eyes furrowed in something approaching anger. “Well your recent actions aren’t exactly supporting that idea, Detective.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

Lucifer deflated.

“I am trying.”

“I know you’re trying,” Lucifer snapped, although there was no heat behind it.

Chloe sucked in a deep breath. “They’re beautiful.”

Lucifer hummed noncommittally.

“Your eyes. They really are beautiful.”

“Which ones?”

Chloe softened. The edges of her mouth twitched up. “Both.”

“Please don’t lie to me, Detective.”

“They are. They’re amazing. But they’re also… a lot. Too much. Like looking at the sun.”

Lucifer opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something and then shut it with a snap.

Chloe looked Lucifer in the eyes. Brown, brown eyes. “I will get there, Lucifer. I will. You’re… you’re my partner.”

Lucifer stared back, his expression pinched. “Eve is… probably wondering what’s taking me so long.”

The first rays of sun finally streaked into the car, casting the blurry shadows into sharp relief.

“Of course,” Chloe said.

Lucifer nodded once. “I’ll see you later, Detective,” he said. Then he opened the side door and left.

Chloe exhaled.

Maybe she was too late. Maybe she had missed her opportunity.

A kiss on a balcony seemed so far away now, buried deep in their collective past.

The sunlight was warm and golden.

Chloe put her foot on the brake and turned the key in the ignition.


End file.
